Iron Axe (17 page)

“Yes.” He was almost panting now.

“Hmm. Then our game continues.”

Danr's knees were still weak with relief when they approached the farm proper. Like the rest of the property, Alfgeir's house was in poorer condition than Danr remembered. Even from a distance, Danr saw thin spots in the thatching. Just as Danr and Aisa reached the half-finished well, Alfgeir and Norbert emerged from the stable a few paces away. Alfgeir was carrying a pitchfork.

Alfgeir gasped and dropped the pitchfork. “What—” he squeaked, then cleared his throat and tried again. “What are you doing here? It's been weeks.”

“We bring glad tidings,” Aisa said, “of joy and comfort.”

“You're an exile,” Norbert said. “Nobody. We can kill you where you stand, bastard, filthy troll.”

His words were hammers, and Danr felt them slam into him with an old, accustomed weight. The old accustomed anger came with it, along with his mother's voice:
Don't show the monster.
Automatically, he hunched in, pulled himself down under the weight of all these words. He was indeed nobody. A bastard son of—

No.
No!
He had opened the Great Door by himself. He had talked to a trollwife and faced the Three. He was a prince, an emissary of the Stane, a truth-teller. And he knew. His. Father.

Danr drew himself upright and saw, really
saw
, how tall he was. And then he noticed something. Alfgeir and Norbert were different somehow, even though they hadn't really
changed.
Not like the trolls. Danr gave them a long look through his left eye. Norbert stepped back and rubbed his arm
where Danr had broken it as he always did, but there was no stiffness there, nothing to cause him pain. Truth dawned. All these years, Norbert had been exaggerating. Faking. How long had Danr felt bad about Norbert's arm, and how many times had Norbert used false phantom pain to guilt Danr into extra work? A weight lifted from Danr's back. He stood straighter and met Norbert's eyes, letting him know the truth.

“Don't call me filth,” Danr said. “Or a bastard. You have no right to those words.”

Norbert's mouth fell open and he looked away, face flushed.

Alfgeir, meanwhile, pulled into himself, not letting any part of himself get too far away from his body. He kept his fine clothes close about him, and his fingers never strayed far from the money pouch at his waist. A stingy man.

And something occurred to Danr.

“You, Oxbreeder,” he growled, “you owe me money.”

Alfgeir clutched at his belt pouch and fell back a step. “I owe you nothing, exile. As they say—”

“‘Poverty does not force a man to steal,'” Danr interrupted, “‘and wealth does not keep him from it.' You stole from me,
Carl
Oxbreeder. In your own words, I did the work of three men, sometimes ten, but got less than the pay of one boy.” He stepped toward Alfgeir, who retreated. “You stole money from me, Oxbreeder, and I will have it.”

“Oh my.” Aisa leaned against the wall of the house. “If only I had a snack.”

“I needn't pay an outcast anything,” Alfgeir said, but he was plainly nervous.

Danr picked up Alfgeir's pitchfork and effortlessly snapped the handle in two. “Eleven years' pay.”

“I don't have it,” Alfgeir temporized. But his face told Danr he was lying.

The monster growled again. Danr could so easily encircle
Alfgeir's neck with one hand. He could so easily squeeze until Alfgeir's eyes bulged.

Be gentle, be kind,
said his mother's voice in his head.
They expect you to be mindless and violent. Do not give them the satisfaction of being right.
Danr remembered White Halli and took a deep breath.

“Don't lie to me, Alfgeir,” he said softly. “Other people may think you're generous, but I know better. You so generously let my mother bond herself to you in return for food and shelter, and then you made her live in a stable and eat scraps. You so generously let her cough up her lungs with the animals when your warm fire could have saved her. You so generously worked her son like a beast until he was exiled for defending an innocent. And you will now so generously give me eleven years of silver.”

“I don't have it,” Alfgeir repeated, more stubbornly this time.

With a roar, Danr grabbed the front of Alfgeir's tunic, hauled him up to eye level—

—and stared. Alfgeir had splinters, one in each eye. Wooden splinters. Just as the Three had said.

A strange sound started low in Danr's belly, then abruptly exploded from his throat. The sound swelled and echoed off the mountains high above Alfgeir's farm. Danr was laughing.

Trolls worked with stone, he thought, but humans worked with wood. Each group saw beauty in itself and ugliness in the other because the splinters clouded their vision. He had known that, the Three had as much as told him that, but now he could
see
it, and it was . . . funny. Foolish and funny, both at once.

“I wish I understood the joke,” Aisa said. “It would be a fine thing to laugh so.”

Alfgeir, meanwhile, mistook Danr's mirth for something more sinister and squirmed in desperation. “I can pay! I can pay!” he squeaked.

Danr laughed again and opened his hand. Alfgeir hit the ground and scurried into the house.

“Some food wouldn't go amiss, either,” Aisa called after him while Norbert gaped.

He returned moments later with most of a ham, a loaf of dark bread, and a clay jar. The latter clinked.

“Father!” Norbert gasped. “You owe him nothing! He's a filthy beast! His mother was a troll's slut!”

Aisa gasped. Danr turned like a mountain noticing a mouse. “Say that again, Norbert. Like you mean it.”

“Are you going to break my arm again, beast?” Norbert said, though his face was pale.

“The one you've been lying about all this time? The one that doesn't pain you one bit? The one that gets you out of work when it suits you?” Danr reached out and grabbed Norbert's shoulder. “This arm?”

“Spread tales,” Norbert said through clenched teeth. “No one will believe you, or see you as anything but a monster.”

The queen's torc lay heavy around Danr's neck. He took a grip on the monster inside him. “We used to be friends, Norbert. We could be again. This”—he shook Norbert's shoulder slightly—“could be the embrace of a brother, or the grip of an enemy. You decide.”

There was a beat, a quick pause. Danr saw Norbert consider, but only for a second.

“I was never friends with the son of a troll's slut,” he snarled. “Never!”

Danr sighed, truly sad. “As you like.” He gave Norbert a slight shove. Norbert backpedaled with a yelp and dropped straight into the half-finished well. A muffled squelch and another yelp reported him hitting bottom.

“The day is filled with surprises.” Aisa sidled up to Alfgeir and took the food and the jar from his numb fingers. “The prince ambassador is thrilled to receive your tribute,
Carl
Oxbreeder. We shall consider it the beginning of goodwill between our people.”

“Tribute?” Alfgeir echoed dumbly. “Prince?”

“Indeed, sir. The great one who stands before you is the nephew of Queen Vesha of the Stane, Lady of the Underworld, Ruler of the Cavern Kingdom, Commander of the Dark Armies.”

And she did something that Danr didn't see, but which made Alfgeir yip and sketch a little bow.

“As you were,” Danr said before Alfgeir could recover. “We will consider your offering when the rest of the giants, trolls, and dwarves begin to arrive,
Carl
Oxbreeder.”

“Help!” Norbert shouted faintly from the bottom of the well. By now, Alfgeir's wife and other sons were watching from the farmhouse door.

“The . . . rest?” Alfgeir repeated.

“Yes. My people are coming. All of them. They wish to speak to the Kin in kindness and friendship. Many of the doors aren't far from your farm, so you'll see a whole lot of them—us—very soon.”

Algeir looked desperately about, as if the trees beyond the pasture might sprout heads and walk toward his farm. “Oh. Er . . .”

“Good day,
Carl
Oxbreeder,” Aisa said brightly. “We will probably never meet again, and that is a fine thing.”

Aisa put food and silver in Danr's sack. Together, they left the farm and strode down the road toward the village. Danr felt eyes on him as he and Aisa walked in warm spring air, but no one followed. Clouds skittered across the sun, and a breeze muttered in the ash trees. When they were a safe distance away, Danr's legs gave way. He dropped to the side of the road like a young tree and let out a heavy breath.

“I can't believe I did that!” he puffed. “Hoo!”

Aisa stood beside him. Even seated on the ground, he
was nearly as tall as she was standing. “You mustn't do that, Hamzu. You are a prince now, and must always act it.”

He blinked. “What did you call me? Hamzu?”

“Oh!” She put a wrapped hand to her mouth, or the place where it would be, if Danr could see it for the scarves. “I spoke by mistake!”

“It's the name you made for me!”

“Now, that is unfair,” she protested. “I haven't forced your name from you!”

“I like it,” he said softly. “Thank you, Aisa.”

“I . . .” Her eyes softened. “You are welcome. It means ‘strong one.' Hamzu.”

His eyes held hers for a moment. He had to look up just a little, and that disconcerted him almost as much as her quiet brown gaze did. He wanted to touch her, take her rag-bound hand. His heart beat at the back of his throat, and he even reached forward a little. But then he took a small moment to peer at her through his left eye, something he hadn't done with her before.

Knowledge rushed over Danr as his vision pierced the rags and scarves that wrapped Aisa's body, and he saw her as she really was. Hungry, always hungry for the touch and voice of her former elven owner, and more hunger for something else, a longing for something he couldn't name or understand. That something was near the water. The ocean. A soft thrill touched Danr. Aisa was free now and could go wherever she liked. But instead of running to the ocean to fulfill that longing, she had followed Danr underground. True, she had said she was in his debt for saving his life, but hadn't that been repaid when she stole the eye from the Three for him?

Tenderness made his heart swell, and he wanted more than anything to wrap his arms around her and make her feel safe. He was about to reach for her, was just doing so, in
fact, when Aisa drew back a tiny bit and Danr saw one more thing: fear. Deep, overwhelming fear. Aisa was frightened. Danr froze. He hadn't done anything to scare her, had he?

And then he remembered how Aisa had been . . . hurt. By both elves and men. It occurred to him that Aisa didn't really see him as a man, and she would be truly frightened by him if he reached out to her as one. Clearly she saw him as nothing more than a friend, a strange, half-troll friend. A monster. Something in him died, and with difficulty, he dropped his hand.

But then he thought, maybe if they stayed together long enough, she could overcome that fear and see him as something besides just a friend. The idea gave him hope.

“Well, we should move along,” he said gruffly, and got to his feet. “Princes can't afford to waste time. Want some ham?”

Aisa finished backing up a step. “I . . . would. Thank you.”

“I seem to be collecting names,” he said as they walked, more to fill the silence than anything else. “Trollboy. Truth-Teller. Hamzu. Prince Ambassador.”

Aisa munched a bit of ham with some bread. “An ambassador who cannot lie. This could be awkward.”

Rather than deal with the village, they decided to skirt the place entirely, not caring if they walked through a field or not. They did pass the grove where Danr had set the table and the two corpses of the Noss brothers. Someone had gathered the courage to burn the table, leaving the brothers' lumpy black remains behind. The
draugr
drifted toward Danr, reaching with their ragged bandaged arms. Their voices were ice on the breeze.

“Release!”

Danr felt no fear this time. He closed his right eye and saw them for what they were—frightened spirits caught halfway between worlds. A thin silver thread ran away from each
draugr
and vanished toward the mountains in the distance.
Danr tightened his lips. He felt sickened at the thought of hundreds, perhaps thousands, of people who had died all over the world in the last few days and were now unable to pass through Death's door. Worse, still more would die in the days to come.

“I'll help you,” he told them. “I promise.”

The two
draugr
faded back to the grove.

“How will you help?” Aisa asked as they walked away. “By becoming an emissary and speeding up the upcoming war with the Fae, or by finding the Iron Axe and releasing Death?”

“I haven't decided yet,” Danr admitted. He looked about at the gathering spring evening. The trees were fully green, and yellow flowers poked shyly through new grass. “It doesn't feel like war is coming.”

“In a few weeks, all this may be burned and dead,” Aisa said. “War, like that wrym you fought, can come from nowhere.”

“Does the grass die now?” Danr wondered aloud. “Do animals and birds?”

“I do not know that such things are important,” Aisa said. “We have twenty-six days left to find the Iron Axe, but we are also required to talk to a man who nearly had your head cut off for the beating you gave his son.”

Danr winced at the reminder. Aisa continued her way up the road without breaking stride. He pulled his hat down more firmly on his head and trotted after her. “Do you ever feel guilt, Aisa?”

“For what? The pain of a man who intended to see me dead? Who took me into my former master's stable and used me because it amused him? Who put dozens of innocent men in prison to make himself look good to his father? Guilt? Pah!” She spat. “I should feel more guilt when a wasp is crushed by a horse.”